Last month I received an email following my blog post, “New Year….” and it made me reflect on many things. First, I write from the heart on things that are happening in my professional world and my personal life. Secondly, I write things that I hope will connect to my subscribers in some way to help themselves or people they know. Thirdly, I write to stay connected to people that have come into my life for a reason or season. Bottom line, it’s all about creating catalysts for positive change. Some days I get it right and some days I don’t. The key is to keep trying. I am grateful for this email and decided to share it as my guest blog for February and may it provide comfort, hope and inspiration as it did for me…

Hi Merikay,
I enjoyed your email this morning. It reminded me of something I heard several years ago and it supports your email.
I heard Gloria Gaither speak at a concert years ago. She told a story about her daughter when she was about four or five years old.
Her daughter loved to draw and color. One morning her daughter was trying to draw a picture on a big piece of white paper. She made some mistakes and tried to cover them but wasn’t successful in doing so. She would try to erase some of the lines and ended up with holes in her paper.
The little girl began to cry over her picture and was so frustrated and upset. Once Gloria got her calmed down, Gloria went over to a closet and pulled out a large clean new paper for her daughter to start over.
Now, Gloria told the story to make a point of how God gives us a new day every day. Some days we may make a mess of the day. We may not meet our goals and we probably get frustrated, and when we try to erase the negatives, we end up with “holes” in our day. But He lets us start over by giving us a new fresh day!
The best part is if we fail at accomplishing our goals, we can start over the next day with fresh expectations.
Keep your emails coming. They are very encouraging to me.
On Nov 30th, my husband had a quintuple heart bypass. It’s a long, long story that I will share with you another time. The bottom line is we found a surgeon that works out of Carolinas Medical System that pioneered a course of treatment where he went through the ribs and did not break any bones!
But even with a much less painful recovery, there’s been numerous things to deal with. My stress level is pretty high right now and your email was just what I needed today.

Have a terrific “new day”!

L.T., Insurance Coordinator